Hey guys,

Yesterday it came the 3DS I ordered from ebay. It came with Super Mario 3D Land and it's crimson red (so sexy!). Anyway since i'm fairly new with nintendo handhelds (the ds games I played was from a borrowed ds)  I have some doubts:

. Which applications do you guys think  i should download? I read about swapnotes and things like that (I didn't bother much with the e-shop since I just used a few hours)

. It is really common the short battery life? I mean it last like 4hrs and to charge it full 3hrs what the hell? I read negative things about this, but didn't imagine it was THAT bad. The thing that worries me is that I let the console in sleep mode (case close) and let it all night, when I woke up it had very little battery. The 3DS consumes that much even on sleep mode? I let the wireless on because of street pass, dunno if it's because of that.

.What games do you recommend? Be it e-shop or retail. I have REvelations and Mario 3D Land, RE is AWESOME and Mario 3D is easy and unisteresting. I bough Mario Kart too but I'm in need of more games. But please take in account the games here cost a lot more, so reccommend me games that you guys would buy for 80~100dollars.

And that's it, if anyone wants to add me and play RE or Mario Kart.

My friend code 4339 - 3326 - 7693

Swapnote is free and it should be there once you upgrade the firmware.
If not, download it, it's fun.
I also heard great things about Pushmo and Freakyforms.

Battery life is really short. If you put it away over night either turn it off or leave it charging in the cradle.

There's no game I'd pay the equivalent of 100$ for, so I can't help you there. :/
But with Super Mario 3D Land and Mario Kart you should have a lot of fun.

You have to charge the 3DS once you open it as the battery is not fully charge out of the package.

It does offer more than 4 hours of play time per full charge and you can keep it in sleep mode for days without problem (I do). I've not manually powered down my 3DS in months.

I'm also quick to throw mine on the charge cradle when I'm not using it just as a habit. It just makes for a convenient place to set it and charges the battery in the process.

With sleep mode, mine at least lasts a couple days, if not more.

Thanks guys, I will check about the battery, maybe it's damaged or something. I fully charged the battery and put it on sleep mode, but maybe i'm doing something wrong or wasn't fully charged the moment I put it to sleep.

and also, Uprising looks very promising. Instead of buying a lot of games at once, make sure you beat Re: rev, MK7(with 3 stars) and SM3Dland with 100%. After the first 8 worlds, the next 8 get tougher, so don't get too cocky with it being too easy :P I reccommend you beat the games first so you don't become too addicted to purchasing games. Other than the games you need(like Uprising), Mario Tennis is definitely up there for one of the best looking games. It's also the first Mario Tennis to have co-op online and matchmaking matches :D Go look it up on the e-shop for videos of Mario Tennis, Uprising and more!

The battery life doesn't bother me one bit. I don't need the extra light, so I turn the brightness down to at least 1 or 2, and it saves me like a couple of hours, which is great. There are also a lot of battery add-ons, supporting the 3DS with a 10+ battery life. Those should cost around $20-30.
my FC is 4038-5998-0369. Hope to see you online!

You gotta get Pushmo. Also, if you enjoy flying games then you should try Pilotwings Resort. I had a blast and picked it up new on Amazon for under 20 a few months ago (so it is probably even cheaper new now). I put at least 10-15 hours into the game so far and just need a few more things to be 100%.

Surprised to see a Freakyforms recommendation.  I was going to recommend it but most probably wouldn't even give the game a chance since it looks childish.  I've had a blast playing it and it seems to have a shitload of content.  At first it doesn't seem like much but after you create about 20-30 characters then the game offers a lot more to do. 

I just wanted to talk about the cradle for a sec.  I understand it is for charging but I really don't see the damn point in it.  I have never used it and I usually just charge while I play.  Maybe someday I might use the cradle.

I really like the cradle. It's ideal if you make multiple short gaming sessions (Playing during TV adverts for instance.) After every session you can put the 3DS in the cradle, so it can reload. Also it feels tidier to use the cradle.

Yet you probably leave the charger plugged into the wall since it is hooked up to the cradle for convenience thus wasting electricity.    I'm not trying to argue just throwing out a possible negative.  However, you could upgrade to those green multi outlet adapters that you can program to turn off during certain times or one flip of a switch that turns off all electronic equipment.  I don't have much room to speak about not wasting electricity...